Liability Reform Should Make Patients Safer: “Avoidable Classes of Events” are a Key Improvement

Abstract

Too many patients are injured in the course of medical care. This truth is as distressing now as it was four years ago when it began an article in this journal’s last similar symposium. Many or most injuries seem preventable. Yet today’s systems of care and of oversight of care too often fail to prevent them, despite generations of increasing legal intervention. Few injuries are litigated, even fewer addressed through medical peer review or state disciplinary authorities. The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) landmark reportTo Err Is Humanbrought patient safety to national attention when released in late 1999. Half a decade later, significant reduction of injury remains a distant prospect, despite some apparent progress.